Hi There

Oh.  Hi there.  Long time, no blog. 

 

I'm going to be honest.  Lately, the thought of blogging hasn't appealed to me in the slightest.  Life is racing right by me at about a million miles an hour, and I don't seem to have time to wash my hair {ew, right?}, let alone find a spare minute to blog.  Truth be told?  If I did have a spare minute, I'd much rather spend it snuggling up my lovies anyway.

 

But. Then I think about how much I love to look back through old blog posts.   And guess what, I can't look back through blog posts if I don't actually post.  Bummer.  So, I guess I'll just have to find some time in the wee hours of the night to devote to this ol' blog here.

 

So . . . What have we been up to?

 

 Homeschooling, dance classes {we have them three days a week now, don'thca know}, and everyday basics seem to take up an obscene amount of time.  Either life is just plain getting crazier, or I'm becoming much much more disorganized and spacey in my old age.

Other activities that have been consuming our time . . . 

 

We went on our annual girls trip with my MIL, and had a ball!

 

Three days at the beach was just what we needed.
 

 

 

We've also . . .

Recently sold my car
and bought a new {to us} one.

And I've been keeping busy with photography, which has been such a blessing.

Check out this gorgeous family from a session last week:






Oh my goodness, don't you just want to smooch on those cheeks???

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Today was spent at the pumpkin patch. One bottle of apple cider, 6 donuts, and lots of coughs, sniffles, and congestion {from the hay?} later, and I think we need a day to rest and recuperate.

Oh!  And in a couple, short weeks we are headed to southern Oregon to visit my sister.  We can't wait!

What have you been up to?
 

 

 

 

Our Weekend {In Pictures}

We had a nice, quiet weekend.  How 'bout you?
Saturday night we went up to Mom and Dad's for a super delicious celebration dinner.
Nana and Papa were able to join us, and Sierra enjoyed a visit with Papa. 
They both share a love of photos.


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This little Miss had a nice bubble bath in the kitchen sink ;)  I LOVE our house.  But, if I could do it over again {and trust me, I do not want to}, I wouldn't have insisted that we don't need a bath tub on the main floor.  The girls have a bath tub upstairs, but all of Taylor's clothes and things are downstairs.  I rarely go upstairs, actually.  So.  Kitchen sink it is. For now {I know, I'm lazy}.

Is there anything sweeter than a freshly washed babe?



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Last night we had another amazing dinner.  Jeremy picked up steaks on his way home from work the other day.  A wonderful {and seldom} treat.  We maybe do this once a year.  Jeremy braved the wind and rain to barbecue, and they were so SO good. 

I made twice baked potatoes and homemade bread to accompany.  {Can you believe I didn't get any pictures of the steaks?}



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And Kam talked me into cupcakes. 
She is obsessed with sweets right now. 
This was our conversation the other day:

Kam: Mama, my don't want to eat my lunch.
Me: Well, you need to eat something so you can fill up your tummy.
Kam: Um, how 'bout cookie?
Me: Nooooo.  Something healthy.
Kam: Donut?

Ay yi yi.

I wish I could say that I don't know where she gets it, but I'm afraid she comes by this naturally.



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And my Sis?  She had the baby early Saturday morning.  She did great.  Is recovering wonderfully.  And the new little man is settling in nicely with his parents.

What did your weekend look like?

This Is Going To Be A Long One

Just for my own journaling-peace-of-mind, I feel the need to get a few things out so that I can remember everything that is going on these days. I don't have the greatest memory anyway, but add "pregnancy brain" to it, and it's bad. So, feel free to click away today. I may just bore you to tears if you don't.

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I feel like I haven't documented this pregnancy at all. At least, compared to my pregnancy with Kam. I kept a journal on Storknet.com, and was required every week to submit an entry. I LOVE looking back on that time in my life, and I'm sad that I haven't taken the time to do it this time around. So, a few updates as far as that goes:

*I'm huge. Let's just get that out of the way now. I gained about 40 pounds with Sierra, and I am definitely going to make it there with this one. Sad, sad. The funny thing is, I am WAY more active this time around than I've ever been before. Hauling girls to dance classes twice a week, chasing after a two year old. I rarely sit down. {And please, please do not start in on "Well, you're older this time". A girl doesn't especially love to hear that she's old, mkay?} So . . . who's going to hold me accountable for getting my boot in gear to try to lose all this weight after she is born? C'mon, somebody step up.

*This little girl still has no name. And instead of narrowing the list down, we seem to keep adding names. We {the girls and I} all want to be able to call her by name, but Jeremy seems content to wait until she's born. I'm still making peace with it ;)

*This pregnancy is wearing me out! Okay, I'm going to try really hard not to complain too much, and also to remember how much I have to be thankful for. But, I just wouldn't be real if I didn't at least mention these aches and pains. {It's also important I document this for a year or two down the road when I'm having newborn envy}. I was in a car accident when I was young, and for as long as I can remember I've had back pain. It seems to get worse with each pregnancy, and I'm at a point now {probably the huge amount of extra weight isn't helping}, where I almost can't sit down, because if I do, I can't get back up. I have sharp lower back and leg pain all.the.time. Also, sweet baby girl is camped low. REALLY low. Like, the last time I was in at the doctor she said "Holy cow, she's really low!" Yes, thank you, my bladder knows this well. A bit of fun trivia: Makenna was the same way. Her head remained down and so low for such a long time, that poor little thing had quite the cone head right after she was born ;)

*I was hospitalized with Kam at 33 weeks and 1 day. I'm creeping up on that milestone in this pregnancy {actually, according to my own dates, I'm there}, and it has definitely made me think. I am so thankful that I've made it this far without any complications. Each day this little one grows stronger {and chubbier!}, and more healthy, and I am extremely grateful.

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Sierra is scheduled for her end of 3rd grade testing this Wednesday. Oregon requires home school students to be tested at the end of grades 3, 5, 8, and 10. I wish, wish, wish, we had taken it upon ourselves to test last year, just so that she'd have the experience, but alas, we didn't. I don't worry at all that Sierra is behind. In fact, I'm quite sure she is ahead in most areas. However, testing {especially at an unfamiliar facility} can be nerve-wracking, and while she does have tests at home, they aren't at all like the one she'll have this week. Any prayers for peace for her {and me!} would be greatly appreciated. She's a little apprehensive.

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And just a quick update to my resolution to read through the Bible. No, I am no where near completing this task. Actually, I'm still only in 1Kings. But it's progress. And with as crazy busy as life has been the last several months, I'm proud of it.

Mish Mash

I've come to the realization that I don't ignore my blog because I have nothing to say. I ignore it because I have TOO much to say! :)

So, where to start?

♥ Kam is doing well. Thanks so much for the sweet comments and emails. The first few days were tough, but she is now sleeping so much better. YAY! It amazes me how quickly children grow and change.

♥ We took Tuesday afternoon off of homeschool and headed to the Pumpkin Fest. Oh we had so much fun. When we first got there, there was only one other Mama and her two little ones. We met our friends, and another new friend there, and had a lovely lunch, and lots of play time. Our weather has just been gorgeous! Of course, that is about to change. We even found a beautiful garden in which to snap a few pics. Kam was not having it at all {I had almost forgotten how tough it is to get photos at this age!}. But I got a cute one of my big girls ;)

And some ADORABLE ones of my friend's youngest son.

He's a cowboy, ya know :) Isn't he sweet?!

♥ And this weekend we are headed south to my aunt's wedding reception. We don't make it down there often, and we are very excited to see our family!

♥ We are looooong over-due for a house update, aren't we? I will have one coming soon. Insulation was installed last week, and we are finally to the sheetrock stage! It's coming along so nice. Now I just need some pictures to show for it! :)

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Alright, lay it on me. What have y'all been up to? Anyone else trying to cram as much as they can into these last few gorgeous days? Rainy season comes to the Pacific Northwest tomorrow. And then we can expect to say good-bye to the sun until next Summer :(

Hugs~

Liz

Odds & Ends

Did someone hit the fast forward button? Life sure does seem to be moving even faster than before. {And I didn't know that was possible!}

We had a terrific first week back to school. I was a little apprehensive about the start of this school year. Homeschooling two instead of one paired with Kam's super loud and needy personality left me feeling nervous. But it was great! Kameryn enjoyed sitting at the table with the "big girls", and she had her own coloring books and activities to do. That's not to say that she didn't try to "help" her big sissies every once in awhile, but all in all we had smooth days.

We had dental appointments on Thursday. I hate the dentist. I mean, I love our dentist, but I really detest going to the dentist. This visit went particularly smoothly, yay! No cavities, and we got a referral for Kenners to see an oral surgeon. Did I mention that I am just now finding that Kenners is tongue tied? Sierra never had any sort of speech impediment. Even as a toddler. Geri {MIL} and I would chuckle because from the time that Sierra could talk, all of her words came out pretty perfect. These big words from a little bitty girl. Kenners, on the other hand, used to have a lisp {that went away on its own}, and has always had a little trouble with her Rs coming out like Ws. I figured it was normal. But once she turned 5, I thought maybe we should work on correcting it. Come to find out, she is physically unable to make certain sounds because her tongue simply won't move in the way it is supposed to. When I tried to make an appointment with our pediatrician, he wouldn't see her. He wanted her to go directly to a speech therapist. While I'm not against her having speech therapy, I truly believe that if we could correct the problem {the tongue tie}, we could solve the problem on our own. Anyway, I was so grateful to our wonderful dentist for not batting an eye, but giving us a referral right away. Miss Kenners has a consultation with the OS next week!

Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon at the hospital. My brother is having severe back/neck problems {which have really been going on for years, and are finally being addressed}, and he is finally scheduled to have surgery on Monday. I am praying that this will rid him of all of the pain he has dealt with for so long, and be the start of healing in more ways than one.

Okay, hold on to your seat . . .

Siding is FINISHED! WOOHOO! Seriously, I don't think any of us had the slightest idea just how big a job siding would be. We have a little caulking to do, and then . . . it's on to electrical! Need a photo? Here ya go:

Next week we have multiple appointments scheduled, and we will be picking out a front door AND paint colors.

What are y'all up to?

This & That

As usual, lots of jumbled thoughts, and very limited time to sort through them. So here we go. A little of this, a little of that. Bullet-point style.

♥ First off, y'all are so sweet to be concerned for Sierra. Yes, that was a bandage you saw in the "birthday donut" pic. And no, we weren't playing doctor that morning ;) Last week, while we were berry picking, Sis had a little accident. The girls were actually pretty focused on berry picking at first, but after awhile they got bored of it, so they ran off to play with the other kids. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but amid all of the excitement and fun of running amongst the blueberries, a couple of the kids started tossing rocks {I think it started with blueberries} and wouldn't ya know that one grazed Sierra. After we got her cleaned up {who knew head wounds bled so much!}, and settled down we could tell right away that it wasn't serious. But we did have a long talk reassuring her that it isn't "tattling" to come tell an adult when things start getting a little out of hand. She's healing up quite well ;)

♥ I've been having a ball with my new camera, thanks for asking! :) I sold my Canon Rebel to my mother-in-law, and purchased the 7d without a lens. Thankfully I have my 50mm 1.8, but I'm finding it to be quite limiting. Any suggestions on a good {not horribly expensive} versatile lens for everyday shooting would be greatly appreciated. {Thanks for your input, Suz, I'll be checking out that lens soon!} Yesterday a dear friend of mine came over for a visit, and I was able to snap some pics of her gorgeous girls. I actually have photographed them before, right after little Ava was born. And it got me thinking, that juuuuuust in case I get more involved in photography, I ought to start a photography-only blog. So . . . now I just have to figure out when to squeeze that in ;)

♥ Anyone else looking forward to Fall? Don't get me wrong, I love summer. The sunshine, the picnics, the long days. But I LOVE LOVE Fall. Just the thought of pumpkin patches and apple cider makes me want to do a little happy dance.

♥ House Update: There isn't one. Siding is taking a very long time. The End.

Take a Peek . . .

. . . at what's been goin' on at our house . . .

Water playin'.

Tooth-losin'.

{her very first one. Awwwww.}

Birthday celebratin'

Evening Drive Takin'.

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How about you? What's been occupying your time?

Checking In

Wow. Summer is busy! Whoever came up with "lazy Summer days" was sadly mistaken.

So, a quick check in before we head out for a week of camping fun ;)

First, we had a fabulous 4th. It was nice, quiet, and fairly relaxing. We went to church, came home so that Kam could take a snooze, and then headed to my mom and dad's for dinner and a few fireworks.

Kam enjoyed dinner. A lot.

And for dessert? Cookies. Sierra and Makenna decorated them all by themselves.

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I only have about a million more trips out to the trailer before we're ready to go camping, so that's good.

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If I can get my act together {that's a BIG "if"}, I may schedule a post or two while I'm away. If not, I'll see y'all next week. And now, I'm off to go read some of my favorite blogs. I've missed you guys.